"Springfloden" could have been close to a masterpiece, and up there among the best series productions in Swedish television crime. And Swedish crime is famous for making high quality. There are a few reasons for the series to fall through and ending up below average in the standards. First of all it's way too long, and may have been perfect with six, perhaps seven episodes. Early on I started to ask myself the reason for the big focus on the side stories added to the main story. If they intentional had more to do with the total picture, it could have been genius, but after a while it more and more seemed that they were put in at only to confuse or even work as a fill in the pie, perhaps to make the story longer. Dramaturgical there is no good reason for the makers to do it like this, other than to make it harder to figure out who the killer is. The actual killer enters the story early on, after putting the blame on somebody else, a little sympathetic character, who just was in the same area as where the murder took place. After this, the murderer totally disappears form the story, only to suddenly reenter in the last episode. In between this we are dragged along in a something becoming a confusing farce, where the side stories just end up getting boring, because they take too much focus and lack intention. The other main reason for it to be below average is that the acting is highly variable. There are some brilliant actors present but it seems like the director and even the best of them have had some days worse than others. Perhaps this also is a result of the production lasting too long, as the series itself, and that it also is a result of the writers doing a sloppy job with the dialogue. The ending and solution to all this also turns out to be too weak in one sense, too much in another. The rest - lightning, sound, music, makeup, a.s.o. Is very good. So, too bad with all the unnecessary fillers, or it could have been another top production.
Review of Springfloden
